Monday, October 7, 2019
On Mondays my seven-year-old, Mika, has a late start for school; however, today Mika does not have school. We generally have a pretty structured Monday morning and today is still structured, but with a slightly different plan.
Mika has a YouTube channel titled Mika’s Toy Box and this past summer (when I thought the whole cancer thing was just going to be a little blip on my life’s radar) we started her Mika Rocks Reading series. The idea was to record 52 videos of her reading books during the summer (when reading is often forgotten), so we have a weekly video to post all year.
As is often the case in real life, we filmed just 25 videos during the summer and have been recording another two or three on most (I was in the hospital for one.) Monday mornings before school. This morning we had ten books left on the list and since we would be home alone until her play date came at 11:00 a.m., I picked the three most difficult books (and one easy one) because we would have the time necessary to get them finished.
There is an old show business quote, “Never work with children or animals.” and I completely get it. Some mornings Mika is focused, and we get her videos done very quickly. Other days (like today) she is all over the place. Do not get me wrong, I love her outrageous streak; however, today’s videos will require heavy editing.
Mika is just like almost every other child growing up in the United States at this time. She has a very hard time focusing on simple tasks. It is my fault; I let her play video games and watch YouTube too much. She would probably be misdiagnosed with attention deficit disorder if I asked the doctor to check her out. I know that is not the case because when she draws or plays with her toys she can focus for quite a while.
One of the parts of my exceptional exit plan is to wean Mika off the video games by helping her find tasks she loves just as much that are not programmed to be addictive. We have a few board games we have never played, and we will be dusting them off and testing them out.
Another part of my exceptional exit plan is to make sure Mika has regular play dates. Screen time is not a part of her play dates and she does not mind because she has a friend to play with. Since there are 17 years between Mika and her older sister, Mika has been raised more like an only child and it was easy to let her play video games and watch videos while I spent a year miserable and on bed rest.
Now I get to try to reverse the damage. I know I can, but it takes effort. People are able to reverse the effects of several diseases simply by changing their diet and I am working to change Mika’s entertainment diet. It will not happen overnight if I want it to stick so we will work towards it slowly.
My piece of advice to you is to schedule family time on your calendar and work toward increasing that time. Life is short and you will only regret the time you did NOT spend with your kids.
Until next time,
Susanne
Please check out my GoFundMe page.
On Mondays my seven-year-old, Mika, has a late start for school; however, today Mika does not have school. We generally have a pretty structured Monday morning and today is still structured, but with a slightly different plan.
Mika has a YouTube channel titled Mika’s Toy Box and this past summer (when I thought the whole cancer thing was just going to be a little blip on my life’s radar) we started her Mika Rocks Reading series. The idea was to record 52 videos of her reading books during the summer (when reading is often forgotten), so we have a weekly video to post all year.
As is often the case in real life, we filmed just 25 videos during the summer and have been recording another two or three on most (I was in the hospital for one.) Monday mornings before school. This morning we had ten books left on the list and since we would be home alone until her play date came at 11:00 a.m., I picked the three most difficult books (and one easy one) because we would have the time necessary to get them finished.
There is an old show business quote, “Never work with children or animals.” and I completely get it. Some mornings Mika is focused, and we get her videos done very quickly. Other days (like today) she is all over the place. Do not get me wrong, I love her outrageous streak; however, today’s videos will require heavy editing.
Mika is just like almost every other child growing up in the United States at this time. She has a very hard time focusing on simple tasks. It is my fault; I let her play video games and watch YouTube too much. She would probably be misdiagnosed with attention deficit disorder if I asked the doctor to check her out. I know that is not the case because when she draws or plays with her toys she can focus for quite a while.
One of the parts of my exceptional exit plan is to wean Mika off the video games by helping her find tasks she loves just as much that are not programmed to be addictive. We have a few board games we have never played, and we will be dusting them off and testing them out.
Another part of my exceptional exit plan is to make sure Mika has regular play dates. Screen time is not a part of her play dates and she does not mind because she has a friend to play with. Since there are 17 years between Mika and her older sister, Mika has been raised more like an only child and it was easy to let her play video games and watch videos while I spent a year miserable and on bed rest.
Now I get to try to reverse the damage. I know I can, but it takes effort. People are able to reverse the effects of several diseases simply by changing their diet and I am working to change Mika’s entertainment diet. It will not happen overnight if I want it to stick so we will work towards it slowly.
My piece of advice to you is to schedule family time on your calendar and work toward increasing that time. Life is short and you will only regret the time you did NOT spend with your kids.
Until next time,
Susanne
Please check out my GoFundMe page.